Shattered
by Hearts A Mess
Summary: The unthinkable happens to Darien while on assignment and while he's left to recover, he begins to realize that his guardian angel might not be so different from himself. Updated.
1. Shattered

**SHATTERED**

**First 14 pages by _R2_ (with permission to edit and post), edited & extended by _Heart's a Mess_**

**A/N: I can't tell you how much I love writing these characters. I sliced/edited a tiny story from a wonderful gal (with her approval), R2. I choose to leave Alex Monroe out of the picture because this story was complex enough for my skills, and I don't really have a feel for her character yet. Looking at this piece now, I think that I've evolved somewhat as a writer, hopefully for the better. And if you give them time, (and a few episodes) you'll fall in love with Inviso Boy, Lithium Bob, Fat Man, Eberts and the Keep; the Underfunded 5, just like I did.**

**Like all authors, please let me know what you think and leave a review. It helps me to become a better writer, and you want to read better stories, don't you? ;)**

* * *

The pain was intense, both horrible and incredible. He had never experienced such a terrible magnitude of agony before, not even in the firmest grip of quicksilver madness. It felt like thousands of fiery knives piercing his flesh and setting his nerves aflame. The air had grown solid and thick, clogging his nose and mouth, restricting his ability to breathe. He coughed to clear his airway and nearly passed out as a searing blast of white-hot pain lanced through him. He drew in a breath to scream and tasted the coppery bitterness of his blood in the back of his throat.

He decided to lie as still as humanly possible, focusing all of his attention on the simple task of breathing; it was almost impossible since each time he inhaled his shattered ribs screamed at him. As he lay there, Darien decided that he was on top of a mound of loose dirt and small rocks. They bit and dug into his back and shoulders, adding to his misery.

He gingerly moved his right leg around and he could feel the small pebbles rolling with his movement. His leg did not go far before it encountered resistance. He gently pushed on whatever it was, but when it showed absolutely no signs of moving, he stopped. Repeating the procedure with his left leg, simply because it took his mind off the raw, throbbing nerve his entire body had become. It also did not get very far before encountering the same resistance.

Darien sighed painfully to himself and realized that there was a heavy object lying just a few feet above him, dangerously low and throwing his breath back at him. It appeared that he was surrounded, trapped…but by what?

In the pitch black, Darien grimaced at a nauseating attack of vertigo; the events of what had happened slowly began to come back to him in blurred fragments. The Official had sent him and Hobbes to the scene of a terrorist takeover; the militant group had taken several hostages and was threatening to detonate an innocent stack of C4 unless their demands had been met. The plan had been for him to go invisible and neutralize the situation from within. Things had not gone according to the plan and the bomb had been detonated.

Everything after that was blurred beyond all recognition. Darien closed his eyes as his head began to beat a rhythm in time with his heart. He hoped that someone found him soon; the mass above him was beginning to shift and groan dangerously.

* * *

"An explosion?!" Claire's blue eyes widened in disbelief then concern.

Standing calmly near the desk she was sitting at, the Official looked coolly at the Keeper, the ever-present Eberts directly behind him.

"The terrorist group detonated the bomb at the downtown museum a few moments ago."

_"The downtown museum?!"_

The Official frowned and cocked his head to the side as he gazed down at her, "Why are you finding it necessary to repeat the information I'm telling you?"

Instead of answering, Claire shook her head and got to her feet, folding her arms in front of her. Eberts was fiddling with a small stack of papers, doing his best to try and ignore both of them. " Darien was in that building."

"I am quite aware of Agent Fawkes' whereabouts," the Official replied neutrally.

Anger flashed like lightning in her blue eyes again, "Then what are you going to do?"

The Official studied the Keeper for a moment, "I have initiated an emergency response," he said in a tone that one would normally use on a child. "I have sent over several agents to assist in the recovery of Darien Fawkes and I want you down there as well so you can bring him back here."

Claire sputtered and gaped at the man, "What? What do you mean 'bring him back here'? If Darien was trapped by that explosion, then he may have injuries that I am ill equipped to deal with!"

The Official's gaze was hard, "I cannot risk the knowledge of the gland being uncovered in a local hospital."

Stunned fury began to burn on her face as she understood the meaning behind his words. "To hell with the gland! We're talking about a man's life here!"

"We're also talking about 17-million-dollars worth of research and development not to mention several years of planning and funding in order to give this Agency an edge. It took countless manpower and even more effort to get this project off the ground and," he pointed a stubby finger, "I will not risk jeopardizing the future of the entire I-Man project."

Claire refused to back down, "And I will not put an innocent man's life at risk. Darien has already sacrificed–"

"Agent Fawkes knew the risks."

"Since when?" Claire countered with an angry toss of her head, " Darien's been tricked, manipulated and conned from the very start! He has no idea–"

"Enough!" he barked, his voice carrying like thunder across the lab. He took a step forward and came to stand directly in front of Claire.

"You will go to the downtown museum, you will take custody of Darien Fawkes and you will bring him back here for any necessary treatment."

Without another word, he turned and began stalking out of the lab; Eberts giving an apologetic glance before hurrying to keep up with his superior.

"What happens if Darien dies as a result?" Claire called out angrily after him, _"What then?"_

The Official paused as the lab doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. "The gland can survive for two days until it is harvested," he replied, then turned and was gone. The heavy door closed with a metallic groan, shutting in a horrified Claire.

* * *

Darien groaned and squeezed his swollen eyes shut, breathing was beginning to grow more difficult as the seconds ticked by. He felt as if the weight of the entire world was resting squarely in the middle of his chest and it was crushing his lungs. Left alone in the black, his eyes had slowly grown accustomed to the near-total darkness and he was able to make out small specs of light creeping in here and there. He was able to vaguely make out the silhouettes of large objects above and beside him; it felt like he was in a tomb and the sensation was very unnerving. Darien had considered quicksilvering his eyes for a better view of his surroundings, but he had no idea how long he would be trapped here and he didn't want to risk even the remotest possibility of quicksilver madness in his current condition.

Through the silence, the soft moans of the wounded began to waft in and swim around him. Darien wanted to call out to them, to let them hear the sound of another human voice, but it was taking all of his slowly ebbing strength to concentrate on his breathing and on the steadily increasing pain saturating his broken body.

A small, thin voice suddenly cut through the darkness and quiet, "Is anybody out there?"

Darien was surprised to hear the voice sounding so close. At first he thought that he had imagined it; that he was going into shock and his mind was beginning to play tricks on him. He slowly moved his head from side to side, but couldn't see much through the darkness or the objects that trapped him.

"Hello?" the voice called again and Darien realized that he was not imagining it; it sounded like that of a teenager. A very frightened girl, coming from the blackness somewhere above him.

"Hey there," his own voice was weak and the very act of speaking sent ripples of pain along his neck and shoulders.

He wasn't sure she had heard him when the voice called out, "Where are you?"

Through the haze of pain, Darien had to think about that one. "I don't know," he wheezed, closing his eyes against the pounding in his head. "Do you know where you are?"

He immediately realized the question was pointless, why would the girl have asked if she knew the answer. There was a brief moment of silence, "It's too dark," the voice said to him honestly, "I can't see."

"It's dark here too," Darien replied.

"I'm scared," she admitted in a small voice. He heard her shifting around slightly, her movement caused a light shower of dust to fall and coat Darien's hair.

_Me too_, Darien thought to himself, out loud he said, "Don't worry, someone is going to come and get us out of here very soon," _I hope_, he added silently. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Thera. What's your name?"

_Ralph_, he said to himself automatically. " Darien, my name is Darien."

As silence once again fell into the black, Darien closed his eyes and listened to the whimpers and cries of the injured. The pain in his head and along his body was almost a tangible thing now, and the crushing weight on his chest made it nearly impossible to catch his breath. As if things weren't bad enough already, Darien noticed that the air he was breathing was beginning to go stale; there was obviously no circulation.

_Come on, Hobbes,_ he mused to himself, _save my ass_.

* * *

Bobby Hobbes decided that he was standing on the precipice of hell itself. There was now a very large crater where the marble steps leading up to the museum had once been. Equally large chunks of debris littered the surrounding area for hundreds of yards in every direction and smoke was drifting lazily up into the sky, emanating from within the open wound in the earth. The museum itself looked as if a giant hand had come by and taken a huge chunk out of it. The entire front hall of the building was now simply a mass of twisted metal and rubble on the ground and half the roof had been blown off and could be found lying halfway down the street.

Hobbes closed his eyes, but the terrible image was burned painfully into his memory along with the cold and horrible realization that Darien Fawkes was in there somewhere.


	2. Calvin to Hobbes

"Calvin to Hobbes, Calvin to Hobbes…" Fawkes' voice had crackled over the wireless headset and he had grimaced. His partner, the comedian.

"Next time I pick the names, got it?" He'd replied, a slight growl to his voice.

Darien had chuckled lightly over the connection and Hobbes could just imagine him shaking his head at his partner's lack of humor.

"Oh come on," he'd said, "you mean to tell me you don't like being named after a stuffed tiger?"

Hobbes opened his eyes and gazed past the destruction before him, he'd been sitting in the van, listening as Darien quietly relayed the set up of the terrorists and where the hostages were located. Hobbes had taken the information and passed it along to the authorities already on the scene.

Then the headset had gone suspiciously quiet. The last thing Hobbes had heard before all hell had broken loose was a resigned "Aw, crap" from his partner.

There had been a muted growl, like the roll of a distant thunder. The blast had followed, ripping the building apart and sending glass, metal and concrete outward in a terrific shower of debris. The shock wave had knocked Hobbes back in his seat as the van's windows had imploded, debris raining down and adding to the damage on the vehicle.

Hobbes had ripped the headset from his head and bolted from the van, horror wrenching his gut into a painful knot as he viewed the wreckage through the settling dust. He sighed heavily and glanced around him, buildings immediately surrounding the museum had sustained some damage as well; windows had been blown out, holes had been punched into the front and sides of walls, even cars parked along the street had fallen victim to debris raining from the sky.

To Hobbes, it looked like some horrible war movie brought to vivid and terrible life. All around him, rescue workers and television reporters swarmed and pushed; one group trying valiantly to save lives while the other group tried to document everything and anything that would guarantee them a huge viewing audience later that evening. The reporters reminded the agent of vultures circling a fresh kill, he wondered idly if anyone would notice if he pulled out his gun and capped a few of them.

Hobbes was jostled from his reverie when an object of his musings, a leggy brunette in a red power suit, shoved a microphone into his face. Behind her, a cameraman hovered just over her right shoulder like some kind of surreal, one-eyed monster.

"Sir, can you tell us what happened here?" She gazed at him with brown eyes that tried to convey sympathy, but failed miserably.

Hobbes glared at her, "Why? Something wrong with your own eyes?"

The brunette frowned at him, but persisted, "Perhaps you could tell us in your own words what you saw?"

The agent folded his hands across his chest and narrowed his eyes as he continued to glare at the over-anxious woman. "My own words? You want me to use my own words?" he sneered at her, "Fine." He raised a hand and gestured for her to come closer and she took a hesitant step forward.

"_Boom!"_ Hobbes shouted suddenly, throwing his arms into the air and causing her to jump back in surprise, almost knocking into her cameraman.

"_Boom, boom, boom!"_ he finished angrily, once again folding his arms in front of him. "There, how's that for my own words? That should be good for your sound bite!"

The brunette dropped her mike, "I'm only trying to gather eyewitness accounts to make this story more human," she said, a touch of reproach in her voice.

Hobbes dropped his hands to his sides, unconsciously balling them into fists of rage. "You want to make this story more human," he replied, his voice low and dangerous, "then you and the rest of your vulture pals can pick up a shovel and start digging!" He took a step forward, "We've got people trapped in that mess behind you; mothers, fathers, children, friends …" he trailed off as he thought of his partner lying buried beneath hundreds of tons of dirt and debris.

Hurt, dying… dead.

* * *

"Darien?"

Thera's timid voice brought Darien back from the precipice of blackness; he was feeling extremely light-headed and very lethargic. His left arm had gone completely numb and there was a constant buzzing in his ears. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to maintain consciousness when it was an epic struggle to just try and inhale.

"I'm here, " his ragged voice was barely above a whisper. Around him, the groans had become still and the ensuing silence was ghostly, eerie.

"Do you hear something?" she asked, hope evident in her voice.

Darien truly didn't trust any of his senses at the moment, but he strained his ears anyway and was surprised when he was able to make out the steady growl of heavy machinery in the distance. "Yes, I do," he replied at length, allowing himself a small smile as he closed his eyes.

"Are they coming to get us?"

Darien's smile grew into a grin, "Yes they are," he told her.

_(And not a moment too soon.)_

His head felt as if it had become disconnected from his body and everything from the neck down was a wall of intense, throbbing pain. Darien was fairly certain that, in the dark, two planets were parked on top of him.

Above him, the giant mass of rocks and dirt began to rumble and shift, groaning ominously. He heard Thera emit a startled yelp at the sudden movement, and he wondered if she was sitting atop the wreckage above him. Loose bits of debris tumbled loose from their precarious position and fell lightly on his face. Darien closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, but the dirt got into his nose and mouth anyway. An involuntary cough shook his body and a blast of pain ripped through his upper chest and caused him to gasp in surprise, pulling even more dirt down his throat. He couldn't stop the anguished cry that echoed in the stillness.

"Darien?"

He couldn't speak, not even if he wanted too. Darien couldn't catch his breath enough to form even one vowel and the burning fire in his chest made even thinking an impossibility. He was dying, he decided.

"Darien?" Thera's voice had raised an octave and he could hear that she was bordering on becoming hysterical. Her only other source of human contact in this grisly tomb was in danger of being cut off.

Darien closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, "I'm here," he forced his throat to say, his voice raw, "I'm here, Thera."

"Are you hurt? I heard you scream."

"I'm okay," he lied, "Thought I saw a spider."

Above him, the mass shifted again, moaning and groaning like a large beast about to awaken. Despite the nausea that rolled around him, Darien turned his head away from the falling debris again, he would rather risk vertigo than coughing again.

When the rumbling and shifting subsided, Darien could sense that his confine had suddenly become a lot smaller. When he turned his head back, his nose brushed up against an unseen smooth surface.

_(This would be one helluva time to discover I'm claustrophobic.)_

Around him, he began to hear people calling out for help or banging on whatever they could find to make noise. As he listened through the roar in his head, Darien could hear the distinctive sound of muffled voices along with machinery. Just a little bit longer, he told himself as he closed his eyes-

_(Just hold on a little bit longer.)_

_

* * *

_

Bobby Hobbes stood under a small canopy that had been temporarily erected for the rescue teams to come and catch their breath for a few minutes. "You wanna run that by me again?" he asked, anger causing his voice to quiver.

In front of him, Claire sighed heavily and shook her head, her blond hair blowing lightly in the breeze. "I'm sorry, Bobby, but I have my orders."

"Orders?" he took a step forward, _"Orders?"_ He repeated, fairly shouting, "My partner's back there trapped beneath a freakin' building and you're talking to me about _orders?"_

Claire reached out to place a hand on his shoulder only to have it swatted away with a snarl and a pointed finger, "Fawkes needs a hospital with doctors and pretty nurses and complicated machinery." Hobbes turned away with a shake of his head, "I can't believe that the Official would actually…I can't believe that you…" his voice trailed off as he ran a hand over his balding head.

In the distance, the voices of the rescue workers mingled with the whine of heavy equipment as they laboriously removed the debris trapping the victims beneath. The sun was beginning to sit low in the sky, casting the scene in a blood-red glow.

Claire went to say something when Hobbes turned suddenly, his eyes bright with anger. "Fawkes is not just a…" he fished for the right word, "…a receptacle. He's an agent, but more than that he's my partner and my friend," Bobby folded his hands in front of him. "I won't let you do this to him, he's done too much, suffered too much for this damn Agency. It's about time you people start realizing that that's a person that gland is attached too and start treating him with more respect and less like a piece of freakin' government property that can be used and abused at whim!"

Hobbes sighed and shook his head, but his anger remained. "I expect that kind of treatment," he admitted, "I'm on my last leg, I got no more chances left so I take whatever is dished out, but aside from that this is the life I signed up for. I knew what I was getting into and what risks were involved. Fawkes he... he's just a punk kid that got handed the raw end of a deal and now has to live with the consequences of it. Hell, it wasn't even his decision to make."

Claire took a hesitant step forward, surprised at the depth of emotion she was seeing in him, she had always known that Hobbes had cared for Darien on some level, she had just never realized how much. It left her speechless. "Hobbes-" she began.

"I'm not letting you do this," there was a note of finality in his deep voice, "Fawkes deserves better than this, he deserves a fighting chance." He dropped his hands to his sides, drawing himself up straight and tall, "You want to take him back to the Agency then you're gonna have to go through me."

The two stared at each other for a few moments before Claire finally looked away, her eyes falling on the devastation that had once been a museum. As she quietly surveyed the damage, a part of her wondered if anyone had been able to survive that blast. That part desperately hoped so.

* * *

As Darien lay in the dark, quiet stillness with nothing else to do, his mind began to wander over the last few months and the new direction his life had taken. When he had first joined the Agency, he had viewed everyone associated with it as an enemy, someone to be despised and hated; and he'd excelled at that. He hadn't given any of them a snowball's chance, the nicer they treated him, the more suspicious and angry he became.

_(Can you really blame me?)_

He didn't really know when things had begun to change, but they had, and for the better. The partner he once viewed with condescending contempt had become one of the few people in the world he truly trusted. The individuals he had originally pushed away had turned out to be the one thing he had never had, not really anyway. A family, an honest-to-God family. Even the Official, with his over-bearing, demanding, callous attitude. It was strange, Darien knew, but he sensed a sort of kinship that existed between everyone at the Agency, from Eberts to Claire, and it was what he had been searching for his entire life. Funny how it had taken a top-secret government experiment to find it.

Above and around him, Darien was able to hear the loud grumble of the rescue equipment drawing ever closer as the rescue teams continued to lift mound after mound of debris from atop the trapped victims. Voices from above were calling out, almost singing, like surreal angels from heaven descending into the pit of Hell. Darien listened as those who were able called out in a desperate reply.

"Darien?" Thera called out softly, "Darien they've come for us."

Darien smiled in the darkness, they sure have.

"Darien?" Concern peppered the girl's voice at his silence. He pulled in a hesitant breath to calm her fears, but his chest constricted painfully, sucking out what little oxygen remained in his labored lungs with a wet choke.

"Darien, can you answer me?" Her concern was audibly evident and Darien could dimly hear a slight scuffling sound, as if she were trying to get to him.

_(Hobbes!)_

His mind screamed in sheer terror as he fought to catch his breath, agony coursing through his veins like fire and freezing his lungs. Vertigo snatched him in its vicious grip and Darien suddenly felt as if he were falling, tumbling out of control through the blackness and the pain.

_(Hobbes!)_

Someone was calling out to him in the distant night, he could hear them shouting to him, desperate for an answer. _Who was it? Kevin? Hobbes?_ No, the voice was a female. _Claire?_

Through the haze of pain and confusion, Darien felt a soft, gentle hand on his cheek. The shock of actual human contact snapped him out of his panic and forced him to calm down. He stopped struggling against his own body and slowly managed to suck air into his burning lungs. His chest exploded with every breath, but the stale air had never tasted so sweet. Darien hadn't realized that Thera had been so close to his position, he wondered if the earlier shifting of the debris was the cause of her nearness. A blessing in disguise, he mused as he closed his eyes and relished in the feel of her cool hand resting lightly on his burning skin.

"Darien, I'm right here," she whispered.

A painful grunt was all he could manage and then he once again called out silently to a friend who couldn't hear him.


	3. Almost Over

Agent Hobbes stood quietly beside a heavy lifter, its bulky arm poised over the mangled debris, ready to pull it off those who were still trapped beneath the crushing weight. The sun had long since set, and portable floodlights had been set up around the devastation, throwing everything into a ghostly white glow. The maddening problem was that no one actually knew where any of the victims were and if they simply started pulling the mound of dirt and concrete apart, they would most likely end up killing someone. No one wanted to take that chance, so a crew of rescue workers were moving on top of the wreckage like so many ants on a sugar cube, using dogs to try and locate people while methodically stripping what they could away.

Hobbes wanted to scream. The pace at which things were moving was agonizingly slow; every second that ticked by was another second his partner had to hold on. Another minute. Another hour. How badly was Fawkes hurt? Could he afford to wait through the tedious, painstaking rescue process? Hobbes wanted to jump onto the wreckage and dig through the tangled mess with his bare hands.

He folded them in front of him with a heavy sigh instead.

Claire came over to stand beside him, her blue eyes surveying the steady work going on around them. "Have they found anyone yet?"

It was a rhetorical question and Hobbes knew it, but he answered her anyway. "Nope, not yet."

The Keeper sighed and rubbed her arms against the slight evening chill. "Look, Bobby," she began, reverting to the use of his first name to show her sincerity, "I want you to know that I didn't agree with the Official. I argued about taking Darien to a hospital, really, I did. He refused."

"Doesn't matter," Hobbes replied, staring straight ahead as a large chunk of concrete was removed.

"Doesn't matter?" She repeated questioningly, "What do you mean 'it doesn't matter'? Awhile ago you accused me of being on the same side as the Official! As if I had no intention of helping Darien at all."

Bobby turned his head slightly to gaze at her out of the corner of his eye, "It doesn't matter because I'm going to make sure Fawkes gets the medical attention he needs. I'll do it with or without your help."

Claire stared at him for a few heartbeats, "Bobby…" was all she could manage before her voice trailed off and she looked away.

"Fine," he replied, turning his attention back to the work in front of him, "I'll do it without you."

"You realize that you're risking everything the Official has done for you if you go through with this and disobey his order," the Keeper said quietly, her head bowed.

Hobbes turned so that he was looking directly at her, his face unreadable. "Am I?" he replied with a slight frown. "Fawkes is the first person I can honestly consider a friend who's not just my partner. I can see the way he cares for people, how he feels their pain as if it were his own. I don't always get it and sometimes I think he cares too freakin' much," he broke off with a shrug and paused to look away.

"The Official, the Agency, they gave me another second chance, gave me another job. I'll always appreciate that," his voice was surprisingly gentle as he continued, "but Fawkes gave me something I never had before," he turned to look back at her, "friendship."

* * *

In. Out. In. Out.

It took all of Darien's concentrated effort to keep breathing; his upper chest erupted with pain with each intake of air and the crushing weight on top of him was almost unbearable. Thera's hand remained on his cheek and every so often she would whisper to him, talk to him, bring him back from the precipice one more time. Feeling her hand on his face was the closest thing to bliss that Darien could ever remember.

The gradual shifting of the debris had finally pinned his lower legs down, and with the circulation cut off, everything below his knees had gone completely numb. The mass directly above him had shifted so low that Darien could actually feel the wisp of his own breath with every exhale. An ironic grin suddenly appeared on his features, I don't want it known that I survived a bomb explosion only to later die of suffocation.

In the distance there was a roar of victory and Darien realized that someone had been rescued from this God-awful tomb. What was even better was that it seemed that whomever they found was alive.

In. Out. In. Out.

"I was here with my stepmother today," Thera said, her voice jarred Darien from his thoughts. "We came to the museum to see my photos in the amateur exhibit." She was silent for a moment and the only sounds were Darien's labored breathing and the voices of the rescue force.

"Then a group of men came running inside, shouting and pointing guns," her voice caught in her throat at the memory. "I don't know what they wanted. My stepmother was with me, covering me up. Then there was the explosion. I must have blacked out because when I woke up I was alone in the dark."

She paused and Darien could hear her sniffling slightly. "Then you answered me and you sounded so close. I wanted to try and get to you," she confessed, "but I was scared to move; I was afraid that if I moved I would make the dirt fall down." She fell silent again, her hand cool on his face. "But then you sounded scared, just like me. I wanted to help you not be afraid, the way you're helping me."

Darien's breath hitched in his throat and all he could manage was a slight grunt.

Another shout went up in the distance, but this time there was no cheering. Someone hadn't been so lucky.

"Darien?"

He closed his eyes, "Yes?"

"I'm afraid," her voice sounded so small that Darien wanted to claw through the rock and dirt to get to her. "I don't want to die here."

"Don't worry," he wheezed, "you're not gonna die."

Her hand rubbed his cheek and they both fell silent and listened to the sound of the on-going rescue taking place above them. There was a lot of activity taking place, Darien realized with a start. He could hear voices, painfully close, calling out, trying to reach them. Reach anyone. Hope soared within him, freedom from this dark, enclosed hellhole was imminent.

_Call to them_, he willed Thera, _tell them where we are._

As if reading his thoughts, she began to shout, "Help us! We're down here!"

A barely discernible voice replied, "Hang on! We're coming!"

"Darien!" she exclaimed, her voice high with elation, "Do you hear that?" Her hand cupped his cheek lightly.

Darien gurgled painfully, the taste of copper strong in his mouth. He closed his eyes with a small smile as the sound of machinery fired up directly overhead.

Hobbes was coming to pull him from the fire.

* * *

"I think they found Agent Fawkes!" A disembodied voice shouted out as several agents ran to converge on the spot where the call had come from.

Claire looked up from where she had been sitting, her heart freezing in her chest and her breath hitching in her throat. For hours now she had been sitting alone under the makeshift canopy, a Styrofoam cup of now-cold coffee clenched forgotten in her hands. Every time a shout had gone up, her heart had leapt into her throat and she had waited to hear those words that now rang out over the growl of machinery.

Now that she had finally heard them, she realized that she was rooted to her chair, unable to move. She saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned to look, she saw Hobbes shoving his way past reporters and rescue workers to stand on the spot where the other agents were.

Claire closed her eyes-

_(Just let him be alive)_

"Agent Fawkes?" an agent called out, peering down into the inky darkness. Hobbes saw a flash of white beneath the rock and metal, his stomach lurched at the sight of the T-shirt Darien had been wearing earlier that day. He wasn't moving.

"Hello?" A voice called out, "Help us, please!"

Hobbes put his hands on his knees and called down into the pit, "We're here! We're coming!"

"Hurry!" The voice sounded desperate, "Darien isn't speaking anymore and he's not moving!"

Absently, Hobbes wondered how this girl knew his partner's name as he willed the rescue equipment to move faster with every ounce of his being. He looked down into the slowly widening hole where he was now able to see his partner's upper arm, shoulder and neck; knowing Fawkes, he'd probably been talking to the girl the entire time, trying to ease her fears as he forgot his own.

A hand appeared suddenly and began waving frantically, Hobbes quickly dropped to his stomach and reached into the gap. The girl gripped his hand with surprising strength and the agent could almost feel the physical fear emanating from her contact.

"We'll have you out in a minute," he said to her, "It's almost over."

"Please help Darien," she sobbed, her voice muffled by the debris still covering her.

Hobbes tried to get a clearer look at Darien, but there was too much flotsam in his way. He was actually amazed that Fawkes could still be alive at all; it looked like the mounds of shattered metal and concrete were resting directly on top of him.

He took a deep breath and wondered when his heart had begun to pound so painfully.

"Darien?" he called out.

Beside him, a large piece of mangled metal was pulled away and rescue workers quickly began shoving and pulling away bits of debris.

"Fawkes!" he tried again, "Can you hear me, partner?" When he called out, it was the usual Bobby Hobbes drawl, _Can ya hea me, partna?_

There was movement beside him and when Hobbes glanced up he found Claire standing there, her arms wrapped tightly around her as she gazed into the hole. Next to her, two agents had appeared carrying a gurney, ready to snatch his partner away. The Keeper glanced down at Hobbes and gave him a small smile as she dropped to her knees beside him.

"All my life I've done whatever anyone expected of me," she said suddenly. "I've always walked the path set before me, I've never once strayed outside of the lines to see what lay beyond, what I could get away with." She paused to collect her thoughts, her blue eyes wandering over to the deep gash in the earth. "But you, I don't think you've ever walked a path in your life, Hobbes," she turned her eyes back to him and the agent saw no malice there.

"You, the man with everything to lose, is willing to risk the one thing he has left in this world for a friend."

Hobbes blinked at her, surprised. "Keep, what are you trying to say?"

Claire smiled at him as she once again got to her feet, "I'm trying to say, is that I'm going to break the rules."

They watched as the last of the debris was finally cleared away to reveal the broken body of Darien Fawkes. A girl blinked up at them through the sudden glare of the floodlights; her long dark hair was matted to the side of her head where she had received a nasty gash, her clothes torn and dirty.

Hobbes quickly reached down and grabbed her out of the way and with a quiet glance of painful trust at Claire, he hurried to take her over to a waiting ambulance.

Claire jumped into the now-open hole beside the injured Darien Fawkes. His Keeper could not believe that he was still alive; he had numerous gashes on his neck and the blood had matted his brown hair in clumps, small trickles still ran down the sides of his face leaving crimson streaks in the dirt. His eyes were shut and Claire realized that it was just as well, they were so swollen she doubted that he could open them anyway. His left arm was also bent at an impossible angle, a sure sign that it had been badly broken. As she scanned the rest of his injuries, Claire's breath caught in her throat; Darien's upper chest had several shards of metal protruding from his flesh.

She put a gentle hand on his shoulder, the only place on his body she wasn't afraid to touch, and began snapping orders to both rescue workers and agents alike, knowing that she was now racing against time.

"Darien?" she whispered, "Darien, can you hear me?"

As two EMT's began quickly preparing a backboard, Claire watched Darien struggle to open his eyes, his breathing shallow with a sickening, wet rattle. It was in that moment that she realized how right Hobbes had been and what a fool she had been, Darien deserved better than a 'sorry kid' for all that he had been through.

As a rescue worker put a neck brace on the Fawkes, a strangled moan escaped his cracked lips.

"Darien, it's Claire."

There was another ragged moan as the EMT began taping the neck brace in place.

"Claire," he gasped, a trickle of blood spilling out the side of his mouth.

The Keeper squeezed his shoulder gently, she had never been so happy to hear him call her name.

"I'm here, Darien, hold on. We're taking you to a hospital," she nodded up at the agents and they quickly loaded Darien onto the gurney and lifted him out of the hole. Claire hustled to her feet after them, determined to not to leave Darien's side; determined to keep her promise.


	4. My Partner's Keeper

Claire trod down the busy corridor toward the elevators. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally. The Keeper had assisted a team of hospital doctors in putting Darien's broken body back together. It had not been an easy task, and in those 10 hours of diligence they had lost him twice. Each time Claire had brought him back with a curse and a prayer.

She stepped into the elevator, grateful and a bit surprised that it was empty and wearily pushed the button for the lobby. She'd been informed a while ago that a man called himself 'Agent Robert Hobbes' was in the waiting room, and that he was irate. Claire smiled to herself as the elevator began its descent.

_(That sounded like Bobby, all right)_

She allowed herself a brief sigh as she closed her eyes, preparing herself to fill Hobbes in on his partner's condition. Darien was currently being transferred into the ICU where nurses would be able to keep an eye on him around the clock, and it also afforded Claire the opportunity to do the same thing.

The Official would be angry, to say the least, that Darien had been brought here, so Claire was taking it upon herself to make sure their little secret stayed that way. In fact, the first X-rays and MRI's the doctors had taken of Darien had mysteriously vanished. His blood culture and other lab work ups had also turned up missing.

As the elevator sighed to a stop and the doors parted she heard the faint, yet distinct sound, of two voices arguing. She shook her head, some poor bastard was really getting it, she thought. She turned a corner heading toward the waiting room when she realized that she recognized those arguing voices. With a growing feeling of dread she picked up her pace and arrived at the waiting room in time to see Hobbes and the Official standing face to face, shouting at each other.

"Because he's my partner, _that's why!"_ Hobbes roared, taking an angry step toward Charlie.

"I don't care if it was the Pope himself!" the Official shouted back, "I gave a direct order that Fawkes be taken back to the Agency. A direct order that you _blatantly_ ignored," he added, jabbing a beefy finger at Hobbes.

"A direct order?" he snorted, "Since when did you become Commander in Chief?"

"I am your superior and as a result I expect my orders to be carried out."

Hobbes folded his hands in front of him, "Not when they could end up getting a man killed. Fawkes risked his butt going into that building, he–"

The Official cut him off with an angry wave of his hand, his voice lowering, "Do you realize that you have jeopardized the entire I-Man project?" his face was hard as he leaned forward, getting closer Hobbes. "If the existence of the gland is uncovered, if its capabilities are unearthed, it could mean the end of our future." He paused to poke his finger into Hobbes' shoulder, "The end of_ your _job."

The agent narrowed his eyes, ignoring the finger, his voice was deadly calm, "When are you going to get it into your head that Fawkes is a living, breathing person and deserves to be treated as such? Taking him back to the lab would've killed him, you didn't see–"

The Official interrupted him, "Darien Fawkes is a tool," he quipped, "this Agency's ace in the hole."

Hobbes let his arms fall to his sides, his hands clenched into fists. He pushed himself up into the Officials' face, fury burning in his dark eyes, "Were you born a sonofabitch or did that come with the job?" he growled.

Realizing that the argument was dangerously close to getting physical, Claire jumped in between them, a hand on each of their chests.

"Gentlemen!" she cried, "Please, we're in a hospital."

Charlie gave her a withering glare, "I noticed that," he snapped at her, "did you somehow mistranslate 'bring Fawkes to the lab' as 'take him to the hospital'?"

Hobbes made a move to speak when Claire shot him a warning glance and he remained silent, contenting himself with glaring at his superior.

"Sir," the Keeper answered, turning her attention back to the Official, "I made a judgment call based on the injuries Darien sustained in the blast. He never would've survived–"

"I had my reasons for insisting Agent Fawkes not be brought to a hospital," he snarled, "perhaps you have forgotten about a certain highly classified bio-synthetic gland?"

"Bastard," Hobbes growled again.

Claire gently patted his chest as she continued to talk to the Official. "Sir, I assure you that the gland's existence is still a secret. I am going to remain at the hospital until Darien is strong enough to be transferred back to the Agency."

The Official stared at her for a few heartbeats, letting the tension in the air build. "How can you be certain of that?" he asked at last.

Removing her hands from in front the two men, Claire folded them before her and turned to face Charlie. "I informed the doctors that Darien was born with a unique growth on his cerebral cortex and that I was his personal doctor and needed to be present at all proceedings. Including the surgery."

Behind her, Hobbes mumbled. "Not bad, Keep. Pretty slick."

Claire ignored him as she continued, "I have also taken into my possession all lab work and other tests they have run on Darien. Before any further tests can be run on him, I, as his personal doctor, must give the okay." She paused to smile slightly, "So you see sir, our little secret is safe."

The Official was silent, his eyes darting from Claire to Hobbes. He finally nodded. "Fine," he said, "Fawkes can stay here until he is able to be brought back to the Agency."

Both Hobbes and Claire sighed.

"_But,"_ he continued, pointing at the Keeper, "you must remain with him at all times and at the first sign of suspicion Agent Fawkes is to be removed, without question. Understood?"

"Absolutely."

They watched as the Official stormed angrily out of the waiting room and as he disappeared from sight, Hobbes sighed heavily and sank into a nearby chair, looking like a deflated balloon. Claire sat in a chair next to him, her eyes with tired concerned.

"How is he?" Hobbes asked at last, and the Keeper could see the apprehension in his dark eyes.

With a tired sigh, she began to tell everything she knew about Darien's condition. Hobbes listened quietly, his mind trying to comprehend what he was being told. He had arrived at the hospital about ten minutes after she had, and had been waiting in this room ever since for someone to tell him what was going on.

At first, he had gotten the run-around, then the cold shoulder, but finally he'd been told that Darien had been taken into emergency surgery and that the prognosis was not good. Hobbes had had to resign himself to doing what he hated the most, waiting.

" …and is now in a medically-induced coma so that his injuries can heal without added pressure on his body," Claire finished with a sigh. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with an exhausted shake of her head.

"To tell you the truth, Bobby, I don't know how Darien survived what he did. His body was like a jigsaw puzzle," she continued, leaning back in her chair and closing her tired eyes. "We went through about four units of blood, and that was just for the internal bleeding."

Hobbes snapped out of his quiet reverie, "You were able to find a donor?" he asked, his voice incredulous, "What about all that quicksilver crap in his system?"

Claire opened her eyes, "It was a risky gamble," she admitted honestly, "I had no idea how Darien's body would react to the transfusions, but I knew that without them he would definitely die."

She closed her eyes again, "From what I can tell without running tests, it seems that the quicksilver in Darien's system acted as a modifier of sorts, actually eliciting changes in the transfused blood." She shook her head slightly, "Simply amazing, once we get back to the lab I'll have to-"

"Will he live?" Hobbes asked finally, interrupting her train of thoughts.

Claire re-opened her eyes and sat up in her chair, studying the agent in front of her for a few moments; his face was deceptively impassive, but in his dark eyes the Keeper could see the emotional strain of the last two days.

"Yes," she said finally in response to Hobbes' question, "he'll live."

The agent nodded and closed his eyes against the surge of relief that threatened to overwhelm him. With a sigh, he heaved himself out of his chair. "I have to get back to the Agency," he said at length, rubbing his hands down his worn and tired face, "I have two days worth of paperwork to catch up on before I can even think of getting any sleep. Besides, I think the fat man may want to yell at me some more."

Claire rose to her feet as well, "What about the terrorist situation?" she asked, "I've been a bit out of touch since coming here," she spread her arms to take in the entire hospital.

Hobbes shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his wrinkled pants, "FBI are questioning the two surviving perps," he told her, "all I know now is that the group was responsible for several big time heists, cops have been looking for them for months. Managed to catch one of 'em, though." He paused to take his hands out of his pockets and rub his eyes. "The remaining idiots took hostages in an attempt to try and free their pal."

He shook his head and sighed, "Seems that one of the jokers got panicky when their demands weren't being met fast enough and detonated the bomb accidentally." Hobbes rubbed the back of his neck, an angry frown on his face, "A stupid, freakin' accident. Can you believe that?"

Claire was stunned, words escaping her. All this time she had thought they were an activist group of some kind, or at the worst a terrorist party, demanding changes that they thought would be an improvement or the release of a political prisoner. Instead, it had been a bunch of hoodlums trying to initiate a prison break. She shook her head; all this pain and suffering had been for nothing.

After a moment of silence, Hobbes glanced over at Claire, "Hey Keep, I'd like to see Fawkes before I head back to the Agency. Think you could manage that?"

She nodded at once and turned to head out of the waiting room, leading the other agent up to the ICU where Darien lay in a dimly lit room. "He's able to hear you," she told him gently and at his nod, she turned and exited the room, leaving Hobbes alone with his partner.

As the agent walked over the bed, he saw that most of Darien's head was covered in antiseptic gauze to keep the risk of infection low as the wounds beneath healed. Every possible piece of medical equipment was attached to every available surface of his partner's body; a heart monitor, a breathing tube and several IV's along with an assortment of other equipment whose ultimate purpose remained a mystery to Hobbes. The monitors beside the bed beeped and hummed consistently, systematically watching Darien's low vital signs while he remained in the induced coma to heal. Hobbes sighed quietly to himself as he rested his hands on the cold metal bedrail.

There really wasn't much he could say right now.

A light sheet was draped over Darien's unconscious body, covering the worst of his wounds. Wounds, Hobbes was painfully aware, that should've killed him. He silently wondered how many more lives his cat-like partner had hidden up his sleeves.

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets again and contented himself with standing a quiet watch over his slowly healing partner. It would be good to have Fawkes back at the Agency again soon, trading good natured vibes with his lanky partner as they griped about the current waste-of-time mission and the woeful way in which their talents were being underused. _Especially his own,_ Hobbes mused.

§ "Will he live?" a far off voice asked.

Bobby raised his head and looked around for the echo. In the doorway, the girl he had pulled up from the hole was standing, waiting for a good answer.

"That's what the doctors tell me," he replied. Hobbes then turned back to her, "Don't you think you need to be in bed? Not many bomb victims get well by traipsin' through the halls."

She had a terrycloth robe over her hospital gown and an IV stand following her every step. "You must be Hobbes. Darien talked about you while we were waiting for the rescue crew."

In the hospital flambeaux, she looked older than the previous day. She looked young, but perhaps more with the dark rings around her eyes. "Actually, he yelled for you, although I don't think he knew it," Thera was standing beside him now. She also stared at Darien, "I never did see his face."

Bobby rummaged up his voice in its usual husk; "He was lucky to have you down there with him."

"Thank you, but it was I who was lucky to have him…" she walked around Hobbes until she was next to Darien's face. Just as before, beneath the rubble, she laid a cool hand on his cheek.

Hobbes realized that she was crying. He shifted on his feet, not knowing what to do.

"Thank you for being there to save us." Thera had gotten up from her position next to Darien and now stood next to Hobbes. Her tear-stained cheeks reflected thankfulness as she gave him a tiny kiss on his forehead. He could smell the clean scent of peroxide and hospital gauze on her hairline.

To Bobby, the affection was pure surprise, but his blush was hidden in the shadows of the room. "Ayuh…If you want, we can keep you posted on when he leaves the hospital."

_(Posted? She's not another family member waiting in the lobby.)_

"Alright," and with that, she left.

Hobbes blew an amazed sigh at Darien. "Looks like ya got yourself a guardian angel, partna."

* * *

It was two in the morning, and the hospital functioning like it was rush hour. A week after the bombing, Agent Fawkes was still in a drug-induced coma. Claire had finally met with Thera and agreed to move him, in the event that an overload of major casualties were brought to the hospital. They now shared the room, doors closed to the commotion outside in the halls so that is was nothing more than a muffled roar. In the turmoil of everything that she was witnessing, inside the hospital room she sensed she was the safest that she had felt in years. A hole in the wall that death would overlook, Darien would be safe.

Thera was sitting up in her bed, covered with a thick mess of blankets, staring at the gurneys that rushed past her window. Bloodshot nurses and panicked family members. Her room was dark, save for the desk lamp that shed its comforting 10 watts. She turned on the TV and immediately hit the mute, watching with flushed cheeks another account of terrorism in California. Who needed to hear shrapnel exploding and civilians screaming? It was all too common to her now and the television went black with another hit of the button.

_(A button, one push of the button is all it takes.)_

Thera looked down at the remote in her hand.

_(It was an explosion, but it felt like a pulse-)_

She was cowering in the corner, her hair shadowing her face as she peered out from behind her stepmother. The men were panicky as if on a drug high- their guns looked as though they were carved out of soap as their sweaty hands gripped them tightly. She could almost imagine them popping out of their grasp and onto the floor, like a soap cake in the shower. In the high ceiling catacombs of the museum,

Thera felt like climbing the walls with her helplessness-

_(Isn't there somebody-)_

The air cooled suddenly, or it was just the breeze that flitted through the room. Her eyes turned towards the white male, age 19-34 with a mortgage and a family, fitting the FBI description majority of criminals; and he was the first to really panic. Under his ski mask he was sweating more than his palms, and he let out a yelp when his ankle twisted, and went down.

Dropping the remote.

Dropping the button.

At the sound of their partner's voice, the tension in the air snapped and caused the rest of the group to radiate fire into the ceilings and furnace vents, suspecting a sniper from the PD. A roar of commotion went up around the outside of the building as Thera could hear people trying to understand what had just taken place.

There was the heavy, Clack! Clack! Crack! of the guns that sounded like clipboards snapping. All the while, the good Samaritans were screaming, clutching their faces under the trembling black and white photos, and the remote was falling to the floor. It landed straight up, then bounced into a sideways flip. There was pure silence- all eyes when the button tapped the wall and from somewhere in the room, she heard it-

"Aw, crap."

Thera closed her eyes and cringed against her stepmother's back as she felt the warm pulse, and before the gunshot of the nitroglycerin with sodium nitrate sounded in her ear, she felt something dull thud against the wall nearby. Then her body shut down from the terror, falling into the dark with the sounds of crumbling beams and shattered glass.

_(A sweaty button put me in here.)_

She looked over at Darien for the hundredth time that day; he hadn't changed. Laying with fresh blankets over him and a few less monitors than from the start. He was slowly getting stronger.

"I know you can hear me," the words spilled out of her suddenly. "I bet you're wondering why I'm still here."

His heart monitor jumped up and down in rhythm.

Thera dropped the remote and crawled out of her bed to sit next to his, the blankets around her trailing like capes. "I don't know why I'm here because the doctors don't know-" tiny tears crept out from her red eyes. Taking one of his hands, she held it and whispered, "But there's something about you. As if you understand me; what's wrong with me. That's why I need you to come back…_come back_."

Inside his body like a shell, Darien yelled up into the darkness.


	5. Transformations

**A/N: There's a bit of a flashback jumble; fair warning.**

* * *

"Two months in this damn place and you'd think I'd turn out a little better than this," Fawkes turned away from the mirror held in front of him.

"Hey, you wanted to look," Hobbes handed the mirror back to Claire.

"Darien, with all that you survived, you should be counting your blessings," she said. She ended her month stay there with a first name basis of all the doctors on the ICU staff, not to mention the nurses who caught her administering the counteragent.

"Well, can I at least do that when I get home?" he unlocked the wheelchair and tried to give her a prisoner of war look without success. How could he fail with bandages up the wazoo and the itchiest bathrobe ever produced?

_(Guess I could polish on my acting skills a little.)_

Claire took the reigns and pushed him out the door. "Lab first, then home. I still need to do some follow up tests that I couldn't do here."

"Right Keep, first let me say goodbye to my girl."

She released him and Darien rolled down the hall, gazing after him with a slightly bemused look on her face. "His recovery is remarkable. With his wounds, he should still be in that bed for another month, at the least."

Hobbes scratched his neck in an odd gesture, "Yeah, betcha he'll be back in the field in less than a month, if the fat man has his way."

Claire ignored the remark, and stared in curiosity down the hall at the closed door where Darien entered. "Thera really does have a place in his heart, doesn't she? I mean, nothing ever comes out of that girl except compassion for him. It's almost romantic, really."

Hobbes snorted in reply, but kept a mental note as he glanced at her.

Minutes passed, and after Claire had finished checking out Darien's hospital records from the front desk, she finally agreed with Bobby that it was time to leave.

Hobbes knocked on the door, pushing it inward. "Hate to rush you, Fawkes, but we got places to be-"

Darien was next to the bed with his hands limply in his lap, staring at Thera who was unconscious, "Why is she like this?" He wore a half dazed expression, one of concern.

Claire picked up the chart next to the doorframe and fluttered through the pages while Hobbes approached the bed. "This can't be right…"

He turned, "What is it?"

"It says here that Thera has low blood culture, muscle deterioration, and dehydration. They listed her as a possible digestive track infection…but that doesn't require DNA tests…" she pursed her lips in concentration, configuring the diagnosis out loud; "They don't know what she has."

Darien was looking at her with hopeful intensity, "What do you think?"

"Never mind, lets get her to the lab," Claire fetched a wheelchair from the corner of the room as Hobbes began to pick up Thera from the bed.

"Wait, Claire. What do you mean, 'never mind'? I think she's here in the hospital for a reason-"

She was removing the IVs with care; "What I'm saying Darien, is that she needs a specialist. If the hospital hasn't recognized the disease yet, they never will. Her chart is four weeks old." She stood hesitantly for a moment. "I'm afraid she has something that they can't treat."

Fawkes looked down at Thera who sat limp in the chair-

_(As if you understand me: what's wrong with me.)_

-and brushed her hair back from her face; "Okay, let's go."

* * *

The lab door opened with a mechanical _wuumm_, a sound that Darien realized he'd missed.

_(A second home? Whoda thought I'd actually enjoy my job.)_

"Good morning!" came the call from deep inside the lab. That was another sound that he had missed just as much. He knew where she was; around the corner in the makeshift room that had been set up for Thera. A branch of the lab separated by massive curtain on a shower rail. He could imagine a soft light glowing from behind it to project the outline of the bed and Thera's sleeping form. It had only taken Claire two days to figure the diagnosis.

He rounded the corner, still in his wheelchair. "Morning, Keep. How's our girl?"

Claire flashed him a smile that was never seen among the other agents in the morning, "I'm so glad you asked that. As it turns out, what I read from the chart at the hospital was a correct analysis, but her condition has changed since then."

Darien gave her a doubtful glance and ruffled his hair, "What, in the course of two days?"

She shook her head and clasped her hands in front of her, "No, remember that the chart was four weeks old. I ran a blood test to check her nutrients and as it turns out, someone at the hospital has been giving Thera a kind of unauthorized metabolic steroid with an advanced protein coat. She now has muscle regeneration, increased metabolism, and improved motor skills. I-I-it's almost as if she is reinstating new tissue from scratch, like her body had to shut down before it could build itself back up. As for its purpose…I don't know yet."

"So she's getting better."

_("How are you doing today, Thera?")_

Claire nodded. "She even woke up for a couple of minutes yesterday." He looked at her, daring her to make it a joke.

_("I feel alright, but my skin is really dry. Never this dry before," Thera said, turning around and showing her upper back and shoulder blades._

_Claire examined the skin; definitely coarse, almost convincing her that it was the consistency of sunburn. "Well…_

_Your fishing Claire, she thought._

_ "-that's common in dehydration. I'll get you some water.")_

Instead, she cocked her head at him and asked, "What about you? How have you been feeling?"

Darien responded with sharp irritation in his voice, "I'm in a wheelchair, Keep. I haven't walked in so long that I feel like getting up and running a marathon to keep me from going insane."

_(The British must be bred happy.)_

She ignored his tone and smiled, turning to her work. "Glad to hear you got your strength back."

"_Doctor Keeply!" Thera's screech pealed over the lab, making Claire almost knock over her microscope. She jumped from her chair, running to the back room._

"_Thera? What's wrong-?"_

_She pulled back the curtain to see Thera, plastered up against the wall behind her bed, watching her arm in horror._

"_What's happening to me?!"_

_Her skin was shedding like a snake; jagged cracks and bubbles of air began to appear as the layers began to separate, creating muffled sounds of tearing paper.)_

Looking back at him, she offered, "If you want…you could come in and relieve one of the night nurses that keep watch." Claire tilted her head in Thera's direction, "Give her a little company."

_(There were already chips of skin dotting the floor as Thera was trying to press herself into the wall. Claire dashed forward and held her still, Thera's skin crumbling beneath her grip._

"_Thera! Thera - honey, listen to me! Just let it come off-"_

"_Is this supposed to happen?"_

_She talked fast. "No-" Thera's eyes went wild in panic at this, "but the skin underneath is healthy, so it's not like you're loosing all of it."_

"'_Not like I'm loosing all of it?' What the hell is that supposed-? Claire, this really hurts!"_

_The Keeper took a closer look at Thera 's skin, watching the original skin flake off right before her eyes. She pulled Thera over and set her in a wheelchair, her skin making snapping echoes like dry leaves over her moans as Claire sped off to Lab 3._

_Inside the lab, she ran over to the only shower in the building, turning it on, trying to find the temperature while watching Thera kick off a layer of skin from her foot resembling a sock.)_

"I just might do that," he replied half-heartedly, and rolled out the door in search of Hobbes.

Claire sighed and closed her eyes against the memory-

_(Outside the shower stall, she crouched down to look at the shell of Thera's foot. Claire picked it up with a pencil, turning it and examining its texture. She looked back at the warped outline of Thera, scrubbing her skin vigorously with fear.)_

What the bloody hell was that?

* * *

As weeks went by, Darien moved out of the wheelchair and onto a tacky crystal-knobbed cane which allowed him into the field, but kept him in the van; waiting for Hobbes and other agents to complete the missions. After a half hour inside the vehicle, Darien started to notice things about the interior. Bullet holes in the flooring-

_(-when did this happen?)_

-along with the layered dust from all the country roads they had navigated through. There was no radio, only a hook for Hobbes to hang his cassette player for the self-help tapes that were stored in the glove box; next to his numerous empty magazines that he hadn't gotten around to reloading. The vents were closed, due to the fact that Hobbes had 'no idea what would come out of them since it hasn't been cleaned in ten years.' Fraying seat belts, cracked windshield, torn synthetic leather seats, and the absence of a rearview mirror.

_(If the gland won't be the death of me, Golda will.)_

The door to the passenger side rolled back and Bobby jumped in next to the surveillance equipment.

"Ahh, that was great. Feel like I'm 21 again," he remarked as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Darien revved the engine, "Don't you mean 41?"

Hobbes jabbed a finger, "You've had your golden age, my friend. Time to let a professional show you how it's done." He now had a healthy summer tan that contrasted against his beige suit.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh? And what's that? How to jump through a hula-hoop of fire?"

"Smart ass. Just be lucky that this battleship is drivin' you home."

"Not tonight. I'm goin' back to the Agency."

Hobbes gave him a second look but didn't ask. Instead he changed the subject by waving his fingers at him, "You- you're starting to look like a pimp with that cane-"

"Really think so?" Darien flashed a smile and adjusted his sheepskin-lined leather coat and brown tinted aviator glasses. "Thought that I'd set up shop at the top of Four Seasons."

Hobbes caught on and continued with an ocean wave of his hands, "Kid rockin' I'm the real McCoy, goin' back to Cal-if-forn-ni-ay, cause I wanna be a _cowboooyyyy!"_

The two agents warbled their way through two sketchy verses before they gave up and began to talk about the importance of doughnuts until they reached the Agency. Hobbes jumped into the drivers' seat when Darien closed the car door. "Hey, Fawkes? Just one question," he asked.

Darien turned and laid a hand on the sill of the open window, "Yeah, bud. What?"

"Do you trust her? I mean…this girl has a good setup of access to everything in the Keeps' lab. And you're spending a lot of time around there- how much have you been spillin'?"

His expression flat-lined, "Hobbes, she hasn't been awake since five weeks after the bombing." Darien then cocked his head to one side, a sly grin forming on his lips. "You jealous of a girl?"

Bobby snorted and said a-matter-of-factly, "Bobby Hobbes does not get jealous, my friend!"

Fawkes chuckled in reply, "Hobbes, no one can replace you in my heart." He clasped his hand to his chest and sniffled as he stepped backwards towards headquarters. "You're right here, man."

"Funny, Fawkes." he called out the window as Darien topped the steps of the Agency. He twirled his cane with an expert flick of the wrist and waved goodbye before he opened the door and ducked inside the shadowy building.


	6. Danny, Meet Hallorann

**A/N: Excerpts from "The Shining" belong to Stephen King. Darien's conversation with Claire is a personal favorite of mine.**

* * *

The clock made a slight click as it changed to 2 am. Darien curled and uncurled in the lab chair as he fought for a comfortable position. He had finally grabbed a book off of Claire's desk in insomnia and started to take interest. Before long, he was reading it aloud to Thera, who lay asleep on the lab bed. She was on her side, facing Darien and his soft mumble as if to listen with her eyes closed.

'"…_In the car Hallorann was saying: "Get you kinda lonely, thinkin you the only one?"_

_Danny, who had been frightened as well as lonely sometimes, nodded. "Am I the only one you ever met?" he asked._

_Hallorann laughed and shook his head. "No, child, no. But you shine the hardest."_

"_Are there lots then?"_

"_No," Hallorann said, "but you do run across them. A lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't even know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feelin as soon as they walk into a room. I come across fifty or sixty like that. But maybe only a dozen, countin my gram, that _knew_ they was shinin."'_

Darien perused the other chapters of the book and said to Thera conversationally, "This is the kinda stuff that would interest Mulder 'n Scully. Pretty good…you should read this sometime."

"I have read it. Three times."

The book dropped from his hands to the concrete floor. An answer from Thera was the least of his expectations.

"You're looking a lot better since last I saw you," her eyes were black, and Fawkes had to blink twice to see that they were only dilated.

"D'you know what's happened to you?" he finally asked after he realized he was staring.

She cleared her throat and pulled back ratty hair from her face. "I know that someone gave me medicine in the hospital that almost killed me."

"Yeah, but the Keep took care of that." He was looking at her, trying to study her condition. "So how doing? Feel all right? Need me to call Claire?"

Thera laughed at his concerned jitter and rubbed her eyes. "Darien, why don't you read me some more? I was enjoying it."

He returned the smile as he picked up the book from the floor. Thera tapped his knee to get his attention. "I know how you ended up next to me in the museum- without me ever knowing you were there."

He looked at Thera and she was smiling up from her bed. "Claire finally told me after I had overheard her talking to your boss. That's why she was in the hospital all that time. It's quite amazing, really. But I suppose every talent comes with a price, doesn't it? Being invisible for a government agency?"

Darien threw the book onto the table and rocked back into the chair. "You have no idea," he replied bitterly. His face went dark and hid conveniently in the shadows of the lab. The soft light he imagined before now lit up his eyes that were staring at the wall with remorse.

"I don't? It took my stepmother's death to uncover an anomaly inside me. Is that so different than you?"

_('So different?' How different? How much did Claire end up telling?)_

It was the news of her stepmother that caught him off guard. He looked dazed, "I'm sorry Thera, I didn't know-"

She cut him off, "But now you feel- you have an idea?" Fawkes made no reply. "That's your only fault, Darien. You're a little too quick to judge." She thought for a moment, then added, "But I can see why you're like this. You've been the only one you know who has these kinds of problems. I'm not going to hold that against you."

"I just want to say-"

"Don't worry about it-"

He ground out an impatient noise and shook his hands in front of her in slight annoyance, "Will you just let me say it? I'm sorry, and yes…you're right about me being quick to judge, this job has changed me a little."

"A little?"

He bobbed his head in a nod and pulled the blankets over her arms, letting a small smile creep out around his lips, "Before I was the perfect Samaritan."

Thera stifled a laugh and told him, "Well, I'm glad you came by. After all, Confucius say it never rain every day, eh?"

* * *

Fawkes walked into the lab late the next morning to see Thera sitting with Claire. "We were wondering when you'd show up."

"Yeah, sorry about that Keep; I was up late doin' some babysitting."

Thera shot him a withering look, but the look wasn't what made him trip in mid-step.

She was clean cut, as if just pulled from the dryer. He wondered if Claire had sent Bobby to pick up Thera's personal effects from her home. She was now wearing a dark green long-sleeve blouse with black pants and heels. She was admiring the lab coat that Claire had just given her, unable to hold the stare from Darien. Her hair was longer than before, now kinked into a natural wave that ended somewhere near her elbows. She was wearing makeup too, constantly making her age a mystery.

She had lost weight, and he knew that most of it wasn't water weight. Claire was next to her in the usual baby blue lab coat, with her blonde hair that always seemed to shine, even in the harsh fluorescent lights of the lab.

She picked up one of the empty syringes that lined her cabinets and inserted it into a new medical supplement bottle. "Well, lucky you, because Thera here has just graced me with her newfound knowledge of the counteragent. She's been able to modify the chemical formula into a more concentrated form, so that it lasts up to thirty percent longer without affecting the gland's intended function." She drew out the liquid formula with the needle and held it up to the light for inspection, pushing the plunger until the air bubbles were forced out.

Darien folded his hands over his chest and cocked his head. "Yeah, well, I'm hopping the next flight back to Earth-" he pointed gun-hands at them in question, "do you guys want me to bring you back anything? Some chiclets…maybe a little beef jerky?"

She ignored his remark and gave Thera a nudge with a smile, "I'm actually quite jealous."

"You're not kidding, are you?"

Claire approached him with a one-on-one tone. "Well, just think about it Darien. With the effects of Thera's symptoms, it was only a matter of time before something like this would surface."

He looked over her shoulder at Thera, who was stealing a piece of cantaloupe from Claire's lunch plate. The Keep tapped his chest, "Come on, time for sacrifice." She led him to the other end of the lab and shooed him into the chair.

Darien slid onto the synthetic leather and looked across the room to make sure Thera wasn't paying attention. "Claire?" he whispered, "What happened to her?"

She rolled up his sleeve and knotted the surgical tubing above his elbow, "She's been very sick for a long time, Darien. People tend to lose weight during illness-"

"Oh come on, Keep. People don't loose that much weight."

"Don't be so surprised. Thera has had the same symptoms of influenza, and it's not uncommon to lose a significant amount of weight. One time when I had the flu, I probably lost ten pounds because the recovery took so long." She raised her eyebrows as if to say-

"You wanna argue with the doctor?"

He released the 'I give up' sigh and closed his eyes as the needle slid expertly into his vein with a slight pop. The counteragent flowed through his arm and into his body in a steady course, disintegrating quicksilver and allowing himself to relax once more.

"…won't have to come in for another shot until 4 and a half days after you find it imperative to go invisible."

"That's great," he replied. There wasn't much emphasis on how grateful he was. But it was great. He hated the edginess that tickled his veins when quicksilver madness was near.

Claire's voice pulled him from his thoughts again, "The Official wants to see you too…I think he and Bobby are waiting."

* * *

He sat behind the desk with Eberts over his shoulder like a parrot. Hobbes was in his usual chair, eating an omelet and a bagel, giving Darien a salute when he entered. He sank into the remaining seat when the Official said; "Boys, we've been contacted by Chrysalis with intentions of a meeting about our 'new found asset.'"

"This would pertain to Ms. Averough, but they did not grant us specifics," added Eberts.

The Official gave him a warning glance; "They requested you, Fawkes, but of course, Hobbes will accompany. Find out what it is that they want, report back." He pointed a beefy finger at him, "Darien, I don't need you out in the field this soon, so make it short and sweet. Keep Bobby at your side at all times."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of the gimp," Hobbes said through a mouthful of egg.

Darien snorted in disgust at Bobby's masticating, "Yeah? And what are you going to do if they get fisty? Chew 'em to death?"

Hobbes swallowed so he could use the full effect of his voice, "Better than you spittin' wisecracks that ask for an ass kickin'."

"Enough!" the Official barked. "Or you two tykes go to the corner for a time-out. Now get moving."

Bobby tossed his plate in the trash and stood up with Fawkes, adjusting his worn blazer. "Let's roll, Inviso Boy."

* * *

The two agents stood in front of the Chrysalis franchise, looking up at its towering windows.

"Man, they got a good location," Fawkes mused.

"Keep your mind on the mission, partna."

"Why can't we have a highrise?" Darien mused as he opened the front door and strolled in his bowling shoes up to the front desk with Bobby.

"Hobbes, what do you think this is about? I mean, Thera is just a regular girl…other than the fact that she's got the muscles of a rock climber without pumping iron."

"Maybe that's what they want her for. Find out why her physique is that way."

Darien turned his attention towards the secretary with nonchalance, "Fawkes, Hobbes;" he said, pointing to the corresponding agents, "we're here for an appointment with Mr. Nark."

"You mean Mr. Stark-"

The wiseass tone slinked out; "Something like that."

Behind him, Hobbes was staring down a group of agents in identical suits and gave them a Nazi salute without shame.

After looking through her desk schedule, the secretary gave the two agents a thinly veiled glare with pursed lips, "Twentieth floor, I'll call ahead to let him know you've arrived."


	7. Catwalk Pansies

"Let's just cut the crap Stark, what is it that makes you send up the white flag?" asked Hobbes.

He made a stiff smile; one to match his suit. "I think you both know. Thera."

Darien shrugged under his leather jacket, "What about her?"

Stark folded his hands in front of him. "Thera is a very special girl…she wasn't a month ago, but she is now. Thanks to the help of our doctors at the public hospital."

Hobbes stepped forward and hugged his arm close to his holster, "How special?"

Stark settled comfortably back into his chair and started with a conversational tone. "In normal human DNA there are different gene strands, some are turned on, others off, others that are insufficient, and it is those that cause diseases. One of these inactive strands was replaced with an altered gene whose code name was called Niluqad. It's a specific gene that allows the brain to adapt to unknown skills 50 times faster than without it. But, like normal human DNA, this strand is turned off. In birth, she was chosen for the experiment of advanced agents for future government agencies. The gene was activated successfully, and as a way of tracking until her 'gift' –if you will– is needed for Chrysalis, we gave her the name Thera."

"So tell me- do her relatives know about this? How you plan to have their child serve an agency without any choice?"

"Oh Darien, you're making it sound twice as bad. Thera is now an orphan."

He darted forward until he was leaning over the desk, dangerously close with his pit bull eyes. "What makes you think that I'll let you even get close to her?"

Stark let the same little smile settle on his features, thoughtfulness breaking into his voice. But he shrank back slightly. "You're afraid of losing her, aren't you? Yes, the one person that you truly have something in common with; a successful government experiment that works for the greater good."

_(As if you understand me; what's wrong with me.)_

Hobbes glared at him, "You catwalk pansies don't know what the 'greater good' is."

"She's already finished the second stage under your agency's care."

Fawkes cocked an eyebrow and spat, "The 'second stage'? What is she doing? Evolving?"

"That's one way you could put it. I suggest you put our Thera in a sparring match with an experienced opponent," Stark emphasized the comment with a glance at Bobby who was stepping forward to parallel his partner. "See how well she fairs. I believe then you will see the true nature of her abilities, and why she is no longer fit for your agency."

Darien huffed in retort, "You're making her sound like a Jedi. Plus, you haven't seen her everyday for the last month; she's starting to look like that chic from Terminator 2."

"That's to be expected." Two men entered the room and began to escort Fawkes and Hobbes outside. Stark called out after them, "Thank you for stopping by, we'll be taking her off your hands very shortly."

"I got news for you pal, saying it and doing it are two very different things!" Darien yelled back over his shoulder as he and Hobbes were being pushed out the double doors.

* * *

"So you've never sparred before?" Hobbes was asking.

Thera strapped on the protective gloves over her knuckles and puffed a strand of hair out of her face. She glanced up at him from her hands, "No, but I've always been meaning to take defense classes."

He was stretching in loose khaki-colored linen pants and a sheer white linen shirt that made Claire look at him a little longer than usual. "Well lucky you, because you're getting the Bobby Hobbes beginners training. Don't need any of the fancy pants Chinese boxing. Better to start with experiences than breaking boards. First we'll start with the punches, move to kicks, blocking, then sequence. Ready?"

Thera had pulled back her hair in a long snake braid and stepped onto the warehouse floorboards. She was also dressed in the white loose linens that were commonly seen in karate schools across the coast. Taking off her jewelry, Thera let it roll on the counter of the nearby table where Fawkes and Claire were sitting.

She was grinning when she turned around and crossed the plateau to Hobbes. "Yeah sugar, I'm ready."

Darien and Claire were watching from the sides of the big room, eating lunch in the daylight of the enormous open loading doors. Before the half hour was up, Bobby had moved onto sequences and Darien was prying answers out of Claire as they sat around the thick, wooden spool table. "So Keep, how was it that she improved the counteragent?"

Creaking of the floorboards and Hobbes spouting instructions occasionally overlapped her thoughtful voice. "Well, it wasn't like she saw the components and pulled it out of thin air. I was working on the same goal when she came over and started asking questions. 'What's this for? Wouldn't it work better if those were fused together to make one element? Why not substitute this for this?' She just pointed out the obvious that I had overlooked, and there it was: concentrated counteragent."

"Did she say what kind of experience she had in this kind of stuff?"

Claire shrugged her shoulders and watched the two sparring. "Told me she took basic high school biology and chemistry...nothing spectacular." She turned back to Darien and spoke before he could get it out of his mouth, "And no, she can't make heads or tails of the gland. Experiencing her logic, it was the very next thing I showed her, but the construction was too complex."

She could see his heart sink in his eyes. "Now don't go mentioning this to the Official. He doesn't need to know that a guest of ours has seen the blueprints to a biosynthetic gland. I know Thera's heart is in the right place, and I made no kind of quandary by showing her. With the Chief, it takes the better part of a year to gain back his trust in the workplace."

He dropped his meatball sandwich back in the wrapper and took her elbow in an attentive gesture. "Now would be the time to tell you. When we went out on assignment, it was to see Chrysalis. He told us everything there was to know about Thera."

Claire's eyes went wide in alarm, "Oh God, what was it?"

Fawkes recounted the visit while watching the hot afternoon sun through the dirty ceiling windows. "If Stark comes by, he's not going to be stupid. He knows that Thera can take care of herself-" and watched her kick Bobby in the shin and then in the upper rib. "-sort of. He's going to be prepared, but I don't know what exactly he's going to do with her."

"Well, he said that they wanted Thera as an agent-"

He shook his head. "She would never do that."

Her eyebrows knitted down in concern. "Well, it makes sense, actually. She did have the symptoms of gene therapy, but I didn't diagnose it as that because it was so severe…"

"Gene therapy?"

Claire spoke slowly, "It's a technique where a dormant or faulty gene is replaced by a working one, so that the body can make the correct enzyme or protein and consequently eliminate the root cause of the disease. But in Thera's case, she didn't have a disease, so they acted as a sort of amplifier for her senses…is this making sense? Because I can barely grasp her condition…"

"Yeah, I follow you, but this stuff isn't hazardous to her, is it? I mean, she's not going to end up like Hobbes did that time- understanding too much?"

Claire shook her head; "I've monitored her for three weeks already…perfectly normal girl. She's well enough not to need a night nurse anymore." She then asked, "Why don't you ask her? I'm sure she'd open up about how she feels if someone shows that they want to know."

Hobbes was talking again, and Thera was in front of him in a ready stance: "Okay grasshopper, last level is instinct. Now, no matter how many sequences you use, you can't afford to think of how to-" he sent up a lightning high kick. She ducked quickly and counteracted with a roundabout in which Bobby reacted by catching her ankle. Thera was now balancing easily on one foot, her clothes blowing loosely in the breeze.

"-defend yourself." He let go of her ankle. "You think you're ready for this?"

Claire whispered to Darien, "Did you tell her? About what happened at Chrysalis?"

"Yep- she was kinda flattered, actually. And when we got to the part for protection, she was all over the idea of sparring with Bobby." He gazed across the room at the two.

"Yes, and don't be afraid to hit me, Bobby. I don't want it to be a surprise in the future."

He advanced, cutting through the long beams of sunlight and stirring up sawdust from the floorboards. Ten minutes later, after watching them grapple the dusty ropes and climbing molded crates that were riddled with rusty nails; Darien and Claire were like fans at a volleyball game, cheering for the both of them.

Finally, Thera gave up and grabbed Hobbes in a hug and twisted him, slamming them both into the floorboards. Both lay on the wooden floor of the warehouse, gasping for breath in the hot afternoon. Thera had blood running from her mouth and knuckles that were showing through the torn gloves and soaking into her linen. Hobbes groaned to sit up as Darien and Claire walked and stood over them.

"Boy, you two really know how to duke it out."

Bobby glared at him and ground his voice, "Not a word of this gets out."

Fawkes snorted a laugh at his partner and helped him up, "What? That a chick half your age and experience and twice your hair gave you a run for your money?"

Claire was supporting Thera when she stood up, checking her wounds. "Perhaps this wasn't such a great idea…"

"Nonsense!" barked Bobby. "The girl knows how to handle herself now."

He clapped an arm over Thera's shoulders and smiled in good sportsmanship, moving to the table to finish lunch.

"Strong like bull, huh?" she giggled.

"You didn't touch my rye, didja?" he asked Darien, half leaning on Thera.

"No, but it was looking pretty lonely for a while there."

Through the rest of the lunch, light laughter filtered up into the beams of the old warehouse and the four enjoyed the afternoon, almost forgetting the future that hid ahead in time.


	8. Whole Damn Calvary

That evening in the lab, it was a half hour after Claire had left when the phone rang. Thera rolled off the bed and pulled the blankets around her in a warm cape as she slumped across the room. "Bonjour," she said into the cordless phone, half asleep.

"Thera, is that you? I was expecting the Keep."

She rubbed her eyes and dipped her fingers in the aquarium to play with the fish. "Claire went home, Darien. What do you need?" She heard him clear his throat.

"I wanted to talk to you, actually," his voice uncomfortable.

"'Bout what?"

There was a pause on the other line. "Well, if you wanted to tell me anything. Like, about your step-mother," he said, hoping it would make sense.

She sighed, "Well…I don't pour my heart out in our conversations, if that's what you mean-"

"No, what I mean is that it's okay to be strong Thera, but if you don't get it out, someday you're gonna break. I should know, it's happened to me a couple times."

After a moment, she shrank down to the concrete floor of the lab on the sudden verge of tears. "I don't know what to do," she finally whispered more to herself than to Fawkes. "What do I do when I leave the Agency? Where am I going to go? It's just me now."

"Hey, that's not true, you've always got us…"

"Do I? You can only help so much-"

"We do everything we can, you know that. I mean- you haven't seen us in most life-threatening situations. We work nothing short of miracles in that place." There was a slight rattle in the background and Thera could picture Darien at his fridge, plucking a beer from the pack, giving it a second thought, then putting it back. "Is there someone there?" over the line he could hear the lab door and its familiar hum.

She gave a quick glance up as a man came through the door. "It's just the night nurse."

Darien gripped the phone a little harder as he closed the fridge. His back spasmed in tension and snapped him up into a straight standing position. "Thera, Claire told me that you don't need them anymore."

She looked at the orderly with his white lab coat and his little smile as he crossed the lab towards her. "What?" she whispered back into the receiver.

"Thera, nobody's supposed to be there!"

She pushed up against the cabinets and held the phone away from her ear as the nurse unbuttoned his coat and pulled out a silencer. "Let's take a trip, Ms. Averough." Another two agents in white coats entered.

All the while, Fawkes was on the other line in his far off yell, "Thera! Get out! Get out now!"

She whispered, "Come find me, Darien."

* * *

"I called you Hobbes, not the _whole damn cavalry!"_

"Oh- so you want your blood on my hands? Well it's not gonna happen, Fawkes. The only reason they live is the hope that someday they'll get to kill you!"

Claire entered the lab in a frightened dash, looking at the mess of glass and blood and chemicals that the two agents were standing in the middle of. Many of her Pyrex beakers and microscopes lay overturned or broken in half with dangerous jutting shards. Although it seemed a trick of the shadows, a closer look revealed to her bullet holes in the wall sheetrock.

Her eyes opened wide as she approached them, "Ooohh! Of all the places in the Agency, mine always gets trashed! _Where is Thera?_ Is she alright?"

Darien faced her, still impatient from the conversation with Bobby, "No, obviously not alright, but she's alive- they want her that way."

Hobbes gripped Fawkes' leather shoulder, half for attention, half to keep Darien from flying out of the room and down to Chrysalis headquarters. "And this is no time for you to go in Lethal Weapon style. You diggin' me?"

Keep was looking at him.

_(You know he's right, Darien.)_

He relaxed a little under her gaze and slowly stepped away from Hobbes as if to assure him he wasn't going to split. He was still dressed in yesterday's clothes that were beginning to stick to his skin. Darien looked at Claire with somber eyes, "What could they do to make her work for them?"

She searched her brain, "Consequences…saying that Chrysalis would hurt all that she cared for. Or, the power of suggestion mixed with sodium memetol, chloral hydrate-"

"Brainwashing?"

"A la Manchurian Candidate?" questioned Hobbes.

Claire bit her lip in thought, "I can't think of any other way, unless the active gene acts as a type of collar that needs certain medical attention; similar to the quicksilver gland."

Hobbes shook his hand in front of her, gaining attention. "Even if she's been brainwashed, and we do get her back, how is she going to recover her memory? It's not exactly the same thing as amnesia."

The Keeper held onto Darien's forearm as she spoke, "Chances are that she's going to be kept under meds until she appears to have no recollection of…whatever it is that they want her to forget."

"Is there something that you have that can flush out the drugs?" Darien asked.

Her eyes knitted down in thought, "Well, I can give you a mild anti-peptide, but to permanently wash out any drugs, she needs water, antibiotics, a few days time…"

"Okay, we'll take that for now-"

Bobby reclaimed his grip on Fawkes' shoulder. "Hold it, hold it! Now let's cover the facts here: She could be _brainwashed_, she could be _blackmailed_, and she _could _be on a leash. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that the situation calls for a backup plan."

Darien looked at him with frustration and his arms flew up in the air, making Bobby step backwards in surprise. "What are you talking about? We do what we do -no matter what it is- _and then we get the hell out!_ There never is a backup plan!"

Hobbes shooed him out the door with the capped syringe that Claire handed him, "You think I'm just here to get in your way, Fawkes? I'm just saying that we need some extra men."

* * *

From her vision, Thera could only see waves of blurred color; shapes that moved slowly. There was a poke in the elbow of her already sore arm.

_(A needle?)_

Her head rolled on the pillow and her muscles couldn't move from their lax state. She felt a cold hand on her forehead. It wasn't comforting at all. Neither was the voice; though it tried to be.

_(Liars, all liars-)_

"It's alright Thera, you're home now." It began to soothe into a sound like liquid.

As she drifted away, the voices were constant, merging with her thoughts.

"You're home now. This is where you belong. We are here-

_(-for you. Born again. That's what you are. Reborn unto us. You define Chrysalis. And your past is nothing. No more. Not your mother. Not your friends. Your family is gone. Never were. Chrysalis has freed you from the web of lies…and we are the only ones you can trust.)_

Thera fell deep into the string of the now-convincing thoughts.


	9. You Understand Me

A voice ignited over the speaker on his desk, "Mr. Stark? He's coming in."

Thera was standing next to the desk and staring out the window at the rising sun over the skyscrapers, her back to the door.

"Ms. Averough, I'd like you to meet Agent Fawkes," Stark said to the empty room. A black eye matching his stiff suit as he smiled. Even the battery couldn't be hidden in quicksilver vision, and Fawkes guessed it was from Thera at the lab, putting up a fight. Stark also had a large bandage on his left hand that was beginning to seep blood through the top layer of gauze.

_(Hobbes would be proud.)_

As he shed his quicksilver in a fall of snow, Darien watched her as she turned. She was wearing a dark green suit and a black huckapoo, the same style that he had so many of in his own closet. In addition to the black boots, Thera was truly an agent that he'd never seen. Even at 20 years of age (which he still wasn't quite sure of), he thought she could easily pass for a sister of Alex. But this wasn't the Thera he knew.

_(Since when do they require agents to dress badass?)_

"He doesn't look like one of ours," she replied after eyeing him.

"No, he's not, but he's an asset to our corporation. We've been trying to convince Mr. Fawkes that our agency is the best for his interest, but he's…tenacious."

"That's too bad, you'd like it here," she said, and turned back to the window without interest.

Darien approached her quickly, "Thera, honey, you gotta snap outta this-" he stopped when he saw her look over her shoulder and touch the concealed gun at her waist. "Look, I don't know what they've told you or done to you, but you've got to trust me, Thera."

She turned to looked at him with curiosity, her eyes strangely clouded, "Have we met before?"

_(How does he know my name?)_

"Yes!" he grasped the answer like a lifeline, speaking fast. "You were in the museum when the terrorist bomb went off. You stayed with me while the rescue crews searched for us. A-a-and you told me about how you were there to see your photos at the amateur exhibit with your stepmother!"

Thera's features softened a little and Darien took another step forward. "Thera! You've got to remember your stepmother! You told me she died protecting you!"

Stark stood up from his chair, "Lies, Thera. You have never met this man before."

Darien tried to cut him off, talking fast; "You spent an entire month at my beside in the hospital, you winded Hobbes in defense training, and you helped Claire modify the counteragent- do you remember what you told me? When I was in the hospital?"

In her eyes, something broke, the clouds now became a thin mist. She made the mistake of looking at Stark with his shiner.

"Is there something wrong, Ms. Averough?" he was studying her, daring her to remember.

Fawkes held his breath as she replied, "I was just curious as to why he's still alive if he's unwilling to join us?" Thera pulled out her Walther P-99 from its holster and pressed it against his temple, her eyes settling back into their ominous slits.

Stark walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "That won't be necessary, my dear. Agent Fawkes will be put into holding until proper information has been received from his superior. And when you're done, go and talk to Dr. Canelli." Three other agents entered the room and surrounded Darien.

She holstered her gun, "Fine. Let's go."

Midway through the quarantine level, they stopped short in front of a glass door. Darien was still talking. "-then you remember Hobbes, right? Bobby Hobbes? My partner? He's the short, little bald guy, you know, the one who fights like that guy in the Matrix and needs a vacation?"

Thera rolled her eyes and turned to one of the guards, "Open it."

As he approached the keypad, Thera crossed her arm over her waist and pulled out a stun gun, electrocuting one agent and did a classic Bobby Hobbes roundabout on the other at her side. She heard a slight crack as her foot collided with the agent's neck and collarbone. Darien seized his chance and quicksilvered; an invisible ram that pummeled the last agent into the far wall.

Thera was now standing among the fallen men in silence. After a moment, she dropped the stun gun and was engulfed in her own vision of dizziness, fighting back vomit that gurgled at the bottom of her throat. She regained her footing and said to the glass doors; "I need help Darien, this isn't who I am."

He was standing behind her, thinking.

_(Stark never said my first name.)_

"Do you remember what you told me?"

Thousands of light, twinkling notes echoed in the room as the quicksilver shed and floated to the floor.

She turned around and stared at his face, sudden flashes of pictures before her eyes. The museum, the explosion that pulsed in the room; sending paintings and people flying. Then there was darkness, the feel of Darien's face, the sweaty button of the detonator, the excited squeal Claire had made when the concentrated counteragent was born, the enormous warehouse that she and Bobby had sparred in. One was of her, from Bobby's point of view, leaning over Darien with a hand on his face, whispering: "That you understood me, what was wrong with me."

He nodded solemnly and took her hand, "And I'm going to fix it. Now lead the way." As their shadows ran down the hallway, another door opened by itself and they disappeared.


	10. We Have a Rematch

"Always me, in the van, waiting for him to get his ass kicked, and then call me for help," he muttered. "Bobby Hobbes would make a rescue in record time, I tell you that!" Just then, the backdoor of the van opened and the two piled inside.

Darien slapped his shoulder, "Petal to the metal, Hobbes."

"Yeah, 'bout time," he quipped, throwing the van into gear. "I was tearing the precious hairs out of my head waiting for you."

The vehicle fishtailed out of the parking lot and swerved onto the nearest highway back to the downtown precinct. Thera collapsed against the surveillance equipment and closed her eyes, blocking her dancing vision that tempted her to black out.

Well on their way, Hobbes called to the back of the van, "How is she?"

Fawkes took out the syringe from his coat pocket, "She'll be fine. Just a mild case of brainwashing." Thera shrank away-

_(Needles)_

until he said, "It's okay. The Keep told me to give you this to help your memory."

She took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve, watching him administer the antibiotics. "I really did want to kill you, up until you mentioned my stepmother. Then I had to convince Stark…for a moment, I thought I gave it all away."

Darien looked up, "What made you remember?"

She pulled on her jacket and looked him in the eye, her original softness finally showing through, the mist was thinning. "At first I wasn't sure, and all of a sudden I had this feeling that I could trust you; that I have trusted you before. That everything you mentioned to me was familiar. Like I knew who Bobby and Claire were, I just didn't have their faces to match their names. And there was something else-"

"Here we are kiddies," Hobbes announced. His van rebounded against the curb as he turned off the ignition before the transmission blew out.

Darien took her hand, regaining her attention. "What?"

Thera looked down, hiding her eyes. "I don't remember."

* * *

Bobby was standing with Claire in front of the gurney that served as Thera's bed for the last month. "Well, one way to keep Chrysalis out of your hair is to make him disinterested. In other words, reverse the action of the gene; making it become dormant."

Thera looked at her tentatively as Claire administered a saline IV with a fast drip, "I would go back to normal."

"The other option is agency protection," added Hobbes. The mechanical hum of the lab door followed Darien's arrival.

She bit her lip, "I don't know…I need to think about it."

"You do that. But make it fast because you got until this evening," said Hobbes. He stood close to Claire and nudged her, nodding in Darien's direction.

"I'll decide by then," Thera nodded and looked past them in time to see Darien walking back down the hallway before the door closed, and finally Bobby heading after him.

"Hey, Fawkes!" he yelled at him in the dim corridor. But the obvious was spoken as Darien disappeared around the corner.

* * *

On the agency's roof, Claire handed her a business card, "This is the number of a friend of mine, and he's classified, just right for your situation. If you have any medical problems or questions, he's the one you can go to for help."

"Remember, we still have a rematch. Your day will come, missy," said Hobbes, elbowing her.

Thera shoved the card into her pocket and smiled, hugging them separately. "Thank you, you two. You've given me more help than I could ever ask for." She turned and walked towards the helicopter, biting her lip and trying not to take a second glance back for Darien.

"Take care of yourself, hon," Bobby called after her, and Claire stood by him in her trademark blue lab coat, waving. The sun was setting along the coast and casting the sky in a warm tint of orange that turned red farther in the east. A warm wind seemed to push at her back, encouraging her towards the helicopter.

_(Is this the right thing to do?)_

"Thera!" Fawkes was running across the platform, past Claire and Hobbes. "Wait." He caught her before the doors of the cabin and stood over her.

"There you are," she said without much emotion, avoiding his eyes by looking out beyond the skyscrapers and shoe-laced highways. She was still in her green suit and it stood out against the white concrete sandblast of the landing platform.

He couldn't say anything, just pinned her to the spot by her arms so he could think. Only until the helicopter blades started turning above their heads did Darien begin to get desperate. "The Keep said that she wasn't sure of the long-term effects."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take."

Their coats began to flap in the wind as the blades picked up speed. "You realize…if you do this, we can't help you anymore, you can't see us, can't-" he cut himself short. "No contact. Do you really want that?"

She looked at him in her softness and the voice he remembered from the museum, waiting for the rescue crew. All the noises drowned out until nothing but two feet of space existed in the world between them both. "I know that this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Like I've been waiting for it all my life. It's brought me to you and to everyone at the Agency. It's made me a better person and that's something I don't want to get rid of. I've become what I've always wanted to be."

_(Which is an agent.)_

He shook his head, "You can always come back, for the gene therapy."

She let out a small, good-natured laugh, "Trust me, if I change my mind, this is the first place I'll come to."

_(All the women in my life leave me.)_

Thera took his hand, turning serious. "Tell me that you know how much you mean to me."

He looked her dead in the eye, "After all we've been through; you're going to leave."

She started to cry, her hair floating about her in the wind as it rose up to dance with the spinning blades. She whispered, but he could hear her voice in his head; "All you have to do is tell me to stay."

The words almost spilled from his mouth, but he realized that she was right. It was her intention to work for another agency in the future. Doing the same that he was, and Stark was foretelling the inevitable. She had become a successful government experiment that worked for the greater good. Out there in Thera's imminent life as an agent seemed more comforting to Darien than to have her back inside the lab at the Agency as the ordinary girl that the world had too many of.

He allowed the words out of his throat, "No…this is the best for you."

Her tears ran down his shoulder as she hugged him and turned away quickly to hoist herself into the chopper and close the door. Pressing her fingertips against the glass, she faded back into the shadows of the cabin until the sunset reflected a flash of orange that made him stagger back.

Film strips were playing in front of him like bittersweet memories. He saw Steve McQueen hug Candice Bergen for the last time, and then sent her away so the Chinese army wouldn't capture her. He saw Rachel Weiz being taken away by Imhotep in front of the helpless Brendan Fraser to be sacrificed at Hamunaptra. He saw Thera Averough fly away from Darien Fawkes so that Chrysalis couldn't find her.

It was the past replaying again when he walked away and shadow of the helicopter left the building.

* * *

_One slick actor named Stephen Baldwin said that; "The future is just like heaven. Everyone exalts it, but nobody wants to go there right now." _

_Well, the future is heaven. As I see it, the gland is out of my head, Chrysalis is long run into the ground, Claire gets all of the fully-paid, state-of-the-art lab equipment her little scientist-heart desires, and Hobbes has a job that pays him six figures. That's a great future, but to me and to Thera, it just doesn't get here fast enough._

_Fin_


End file.
